


this boundless ocean

by taeyuu



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 10:22:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7218691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taeyuu/pseuds/taeyuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <strong>Spoilers for chapter 82.</strong>
</p><p>  <em>To you, I give you my future.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	this boundless ocean

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly, literally cried at the end of this chapter. I'd been considering writing something in Armin's point of view before, but with recent events I felt I needed this tribute for my own peace of mind.

I never believed I was important.

You can argue with me that I have worth, that I am significant, that my presence in the world will make a difference. You can tell me I am important to you, and maybe a part of me will believe you, but somewhere inside is a voice I can’t escape.

_I am expendable._

I can be tossed aside. That’s okay. You are the important ones: you, who are more to me than friends, more to me than brother and sister.

You are the parts of me that make me whole – the parts of myself I am missing.

To my brother, who protected me as a child, who stood by me as a shield. My brother who gave me the courage I could never find and the confidence I never had.

To my sister, who stood by me in support, who had to protect the both of us when my brother couldn’t on his own. My sister whose strength is unrivaled by many, but who held my hand gently when even your own legs were trembling.

I am not strong. I am not confident. I am small. I am thin. I am weak. _I am expendable_.

But you two stood by me and held me up.

You listened to my stories of the world beyond the walls. You encouraged me to dream, to wish, to believe in a world of freedom. And you believed as well.

I can admit the only thing I’ve been good for is thinking. You’ve told me that so many times and somehow we’ve managed to survive so far. I do the planning, you do the action. Words and numbers come easy to me. Books are my indulgence – my escape from reality.

Or are they reality in itself? This ocean of salt water, the seas of liquid fire, the lands of frozen ice I find my eyes reading over and over and _over_. We would never find out unless we searched for ourselves.

And we did just that.

You, my brother and sister, who believed in my dreams and made them yours. You became soldiers in search of freedom; how could I not follow after you when my dreams might kill you?

I would rather die than become a burden.

When I thought you were dead in Trost, Eren, I didn’t know what to do. You saved me from that titan, gave your life for mine without hesitation. It was my cowardice that killed you once, and I cannot be more grateful that you are alive today.

You were the one who gave me courage to speak up against the authorities when they wanted you dead. Your words gave me the confidence to control my fears and to stand up for myself, even if only to protect you and Mikasa. Even if I could not protect myself.

_Still so weak, so useless, so worthless._

The voice always came back to remind me of my worthlessness; it was a part of me that always tried to plan my escape. Whatever I came up with, I was always a sacrifice.

To save you from execution, I offered my life. To wake you up so you could fix the breach in the Trost gate, I could have been eaten. To distract the female titan, I pretended to be you. I chased after you when Reiner and Bertholdt kidnapped you – used myself as a distraction so the others could rescue you.

To get our revenge on the Colossal Titan here in Shiganshina, I'm using myself as a distraction again.

My body is weak, Eren, and I have always been a coward. Scared to live, scared to fight, scared to die. But my brain has always gotten us out of a pinch, and if it wasn’t Bertholdt I could convince, it had to be you.

 _I’m not that brave_.

But my worth is nothing compared to yours. Nothing compared to Mikasa’s. If this is the only thing I can do to protect you, then there's no other way.

_I’ll leave the rest to you._

So I’m breaking my promise with you. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep it.

_My dreams are your dreams._

This boundless ocean that awaits us, I’ll find it through you.

_You will live._

To you, my friends and comrades.

To you, my brother and sister. My family whom I love more than anything in the world.

_To you, I give you my future._

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive me if the train of thought jumps around in here, or if the flow of words isn't particularly great. I wrote this at 4 AM and just wanted to get it off my chest.
> 
> When I first got into this fandom, I didn't like Armin because I thought he was too whiny. As the story developed and we got further along, I ended up finding him the most... realistic, and the most relatable.
> 
> Because Armin is physically weak and is only particularly good at thinking, he has a hard time trying to believe he is important and able to help since everyone else fights when he can't. He has low self-esteem because he compares himself to the people around him, just like we do in real life. There's Mikasa, who has this unwavering strength about her, and Eren, who is of course going to be viewed as the one person who cannot die since he is their titan trump card, so he will always be more important than Armin ever could. There's Levi who is humanity's strongest, Erwin who is the commander, and Hange who performs all the experiments and designs ways to defeat or capture titans.
> 
> His own personal mantra is something like "I have importance, but everyone else is more important than I am," or at least that's what I see his personality as. He was the most innocent, and I truly believed he was going to make it to the ocean.


End file.
